Sea Walls Spell Doom For Our Sandy Beaches

"There was a wide beach out there," he says. "There was a concession stand there. There was a cart that sold hot dogs."

Now mullet swim where weenies once roasted. But Danny's house stands strong.

He stayed there for each hurricane, watching the waves crashing into his sea wall. But his shoreline armor held, and all the Atlantic could do was spit spray at him. "The sea wall saved us," he says.

Less than a mile away, lifeguard Brad Goodrich watches waves slap another sea wall. "This was the most happenin' spot on the beach," he says.

Now it's the most happenin' sandbar. If you're going to the beach at this beach, you best go to Smyrna Dunes Park. It has lots of sand. The boardwalk takes you on a wonderful tour of the dunes. Come here if you want to see what we've lost by stupidly plopping all those ugly, boxed condos on the shoreline.

When the hurricanes attacked here, the waves hit no obstacles. They simply washed up on the shore and vented their energy in a much less destructive manner.

And when they retreated, there was plenty of sand in the dunes to replace what was lost. The beach here ebbs and flows as nature intended.

But ebbing does not go over well with people who spent big bucks to live on the beach. So they build sea walls or plop piles of giant rocks on the shore. Not only does this make erosion worse, it also blocks off the backup supply of sand, which now sits under buildings.

When you try to stabilize something not meant to be stable, the penalty you pay is the beach.

Since the hurricanes, people have demanded more and bigger sea walls. The state hems and haws but people usually get permission to protect their property.

Not mentioned is that the sandy part of the beach, the part you sit on to get skin cancer, is public property. So in allowing sea walls, the state sacrifices your property so beachfront dwellers can protect their property.

Given this background, let's project out into the future. As beach erosion gets worse because of storms and the rise in sea level, people will demand more shoreline armor.

This will cause dwindling beaches to dwindle faster. With the sea moving closer, landowners will want even bigger sea walls and bigger piles of rocks. And so a cycle begins in which the solution worsens the problem.

But if the goal is to protect private property, there is no other solution.

At some point, we will begin to look like Holland. People will crawl out on rocks and sun themselves like lizards. Tourists will abandon New Smyrna Beach for Blizzard Beach over at Disney.

The only way to keep a beach is to dredge up sand and silt from the ocean bottom and pump it on the shore, where it eventually washes away, requiring periodic "renourishment." This will become quite expensive as more beaches need sand.

But lest you think anything will change, the sound of heavy machinery you hear from the Smyrna Dunes boardwalk isn't hurricane recovery work. The newest building at the neighboring Minorca condominium development is going up.